Introduction

According to Wikipedia, a lipogram (from
Greek lipogrammatos or lipagrammatos, "missing
letter") is a form of constrained
writing or word
game consisting of writing texts in which a common
letter or group of letters is omitted -- usually a common vowel. The
challenge is trivial for uncommon letters; the
greatest challenge in English is omitting the letter "e", especially
when the text is grammatically
correct and smooth-flowing.

This approach is one initiative of Oulipo (French
abbreviation for: Ouvroir
de littérature potentielle;
roughly translated: "workshop of potential literature"). This is
a group of writers, poets and mathematicians interested in the creation
of literature using constrained
writing techniques (see Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie, The
Oulipo Compendium, 1998/2005 -- contents).
One purpose of such constraints is to trigger new ideas and new thinking.
The group is associated with several
others (see also Ou-X-Po) having similar objectives
with regard to other forms of representation.

The lipogram constitutes an interesting metaphor for the challenge of articulating
a strategy in response to a complex of problems (a problematique) whilst
omitting a single problem -- where problems might be understood as the "letters" of
the strategic alphabet. Clearly the challenge is relatively trivial in the
case of uncommon problems in any problematique.

It would then be appropriate to speak of such a constrained global strategy
as a "lipostrategy" responding to the challenge of a "lipoproblem" (from
Greek lipoproblema, "missing
problem",
where problem may also be understood as "question").

Examples in literature

Notable examples of lipograms in literature include:

Georges
Perec (A Void,
La Disparition, 1969), lacking the letter "e" except
in the name of the author.

Michel Thaler (Le
Train de Nulle Part, The Train
from Nowhere, 2004), a 233-page novel
written without a single verb.

The process of omission, whether
unintentional or deliberate, is more commonly recognized in elision.
This is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant,
or a whole syllable) in an isolated word or phrase, producing a result that
is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sounds may be elided for euphonic
effect. A musical
variant also exists. Also of some relevance are the abbreviations (logograms)
used in the widespread phenomenon of SMS texting,
as described by linguist David
Crystal (Txtng:
the Gr8 Db8, 2008).

Lipoproblematic strategies

Strategic documents may also be seen as offering the possibility of omitting
otherwise obvious key elements, such as problems or any verb implying
action. As with a lipogram novel, this is relatively easy when the problem
is an uncommon one that figures rarely (if at all) in any problematique,
or where there is no question of later determining whether any action resulted
from the strategy.

The admiration for the skill required to write novels without the letter
"e" must however be extended to the case of strategies formulated
with the omission of such key problems. This is a major conceptual challenge
for a systems analyst and the policy scientists who develop strategies
based on such articulations -- and for those who promote such strategies
through the media. The art is all the greater when the strategic document
is not only grammatically correct and smooth-flowing (as with the lipogram)
but may also be evaluated as having systemic coherence. In effect the
strategy has to be designed "around" the
omitted problem -- ignoring the feedback loops associated with that problem.

The skill of such systemic elision might be defined as "lipoanalysis" as
practiced by "lipoanalysts". Of relevance is whether what is omitted is done
consciously or is effectively associated with a systemic blindspot.

Using a legal regime to frame a lipostrategy in relation to indigenous peoples

Perhaps one of the most obvious forms of lipostrategy, and yet the most
insidious, is the manner in which engagement with indigenous
peoples has
been justified by expanding colonial empires. The process has been made obvious
through hindsight, now that those who engaged in it can claim to have formalized
such arrangements and "moved on". Its consequences continue to be
a source of extreme distress for the descendants of those peoples who remain
sensitive to the inherited injustice, especially when treaty obligations
have been ignored or reframed to their disadvantage.

In that context the lipostrategy might be said to function by progressively
rolling out a legal regime, like a carpet, over territory variously inhabited
by others for centuries. The regime is deployed to legitimize occupation
of that territory variously claimed as being unoccupied (Terra
Nullius),
by right of conquest, or through formulation of treaties (in accordance with
the legal regime of the occupying party). The condition
under which such legal devices, totally unfamiliar to the indigenous peoples,
were proposed as a means of regulating differences is typically now viewed
as extremely problematic and prejudicial for the peoples concerned.

The "lipo"
dimension lies in the manner in which any rights of the indigenous peoples
were ignored as essentially irrelevant. This attitude continues to be cultivated
on the assumption that any rights they now have were effectively defined
by the original treaties -- irrespective of how they may now have been reframed
or set aside. In addition to the many such peoples now effectively marginalized
or confined to "reservations", a striking example of the process in action
is to be seen in the highly controversial development of settlements by Israel
on lands long occupied by Palestinians -- often with legal title predating
the establishment of Israel as a state in 1948. In this case such title is
considered void in the light of historical precedence deriving from biblical
rights to the land of Israel -- as claimed by the Jewish people.

The operation of the lipostrategy is usefully understood as a process of
encroachment through which the encroaching party empowers itself to ignore
any claims of others often such as to frame itself as an innocent party wronged
by any resistance to its occupation of territory. New forms of lipostrategy
are to be seen in operation in the acquisition of title to cultural and intellectual
property, most notably in the case of traditional medicines (cf Varieties
of Encroachment,
2004; Errorism
vs Terrorism? Encroachment, Complicity, Denial and Terraism, 2004).

Paul Krugman (Beliefs
in Collision: how the bubble was missed, International
Herald Tribune, 5 September 2009) argues that:

Some economists, notably Robert
Shiller, did identify the bubble and warn
of painful consequences if it were to burst. Yet key policy makers failed
to see the obvious... How did they miss the bubble?.... But there was something
else going on: a general belief that bubbles just don't happen. What is
striking, when you reread Mr Greenspan's
assurances, is that they weren't based on evidence -- they were based on
the a priori assertion that there simply could not be a bubble in housing.
And the financial theorists were even more adamant on this point.

The missing (lipo) factor was the connection to the grounded reality of
the economic system. From a lipo perspective, the elision of this consideration
gave the "euphonic" impression that the financial system was "sound".
The question for the future -- in efforts to return to "business-as-usual" --
is whether growth-based economies are dependent on some such "euphonic" illusion.
Elsewhere the dependence on economic "bubbles" has
been reframed and explored in terms of "ballooning" technology
(Globallooning
-- Strategic Inflation of Expectations and Inconsequential Drift, 2009).

Of course the distinguishing characteristic of both bubbles and balloons
is their central "emptiness" -- suggesting another understanding of lipostrategy.

Overpopulation denial as a lipoexemplar

The prime example of this art form is in the many strategies concerned with
the challenge of constrained resources -- or of those directly consequent
upon human activity, such as degradation of the environment and climate change.
Most remarkable as an example of this art form, in the light of the systems
analysis in The
Limits to Growth (1972), is the manner in which exploding
population is factored out of current strategic development. Just as the
letter "e" may only be present as a conceit in the name of the
author of a lipogram, any reference to "population" is only ever
mentioned in passing, if at all.

A simple example is offered in response to a worthy campaign launched
with the support of The Guardian in the UK by producers of the climate
change documentary
The Age of Stupid (Franny Armstrong, 10:10 - our
chance to save the world, 1 September 2009). What might indeed be
said to be profoundly "stupid" is illustrated by a commentary on the enthusiastic
reporting in support of the emissions reduction campaign, as a letter to The
Guardian:

Two days' reporting on this excellent project, and not once is it mentioned
that the primary way of reducing carbon emissions is to have smaller families.
Each birth saved is a lifetime of emissions saved - more, in fact,
when you consider the potential descendants of that child. (Roger
Plenty, Other ways to hit the 10:10 target, 3 September 2009)

The systematic omission of any reference to overpopulation in international
debate might be understood as consistent with the widely appreciated remark
of Ludwig Wittgenstein: Whereof
one cannot speak, thereof one must pass over in silence (Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus, 1922).

Lipostrategies as the hollowing and evisceration of values?

Global strategies are commonly defended in the name of fundamental human
values -- necessarily beyond any reasonable challenge. As such they offer
an "ideal" means of disguising the operation of lipostrategies which might
be characterized as a process of "hollowing" out those values. Such progressive
enfeeblement is well recognized in the process of "white-anting"
-- subverting or undermining from within -- with an outcome recognized
metaphorically as "worm-eaten".

Equality: The financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath have highlighted
the extent to which there is effectively a very heavy investment in inequality.
Despite the crisis, and recognition of those deemed responsible for exacerbating
the excesses that gave rise to it, there is widespread astonishment at
the manner in which the latter continue to be rewarded for contributing
to the destruction of the livelihoods of millions as described by Julia
Finch and Simon Bowers (Executive
pay keeps rising, Guardian survey finds, The Guardian,
Monday 14 September 2009). Their survey found that in the UK the top 25
FTSE100 directors received a remuneration 485 times that of the media
national average wage.

Fraternity: This value might be claimed as the central justification
for the military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan to liberate their
peoples from dictatorship and oppression -- notably of women. At the time
of writing, it has been estimated that the number of Iraqis killed in that
process to be 1,339,771 (Iraq
Deaths, Just
Foreign Policy,
2009). Curiously the fraternal impulse to intervene in this way has
not been triggered by the situation in other regions such as
Dafur or the Eastern Congo where millions are reported raped and slaughtered.
By 2008 the Great
War of Africa and its aftermath had killed
5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, it the deadliest
conflict worldwide since World War II. Millions more were displaced from
their homes or sought asylum in neighbouring countries. Curiously It is
the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council who were the five
largest military spenders in 2008: USA
($607 billion), China ($84.9 billion), France ($65.7 billion), Britain
($65.3 billion), and Russia ($58.6 billion) (Thalif Deen, Disarmament:
No Slowdown for Weapons Industry, 2009).

This process of evisceration of rights is not a focus of the "international
community", typically complicit in a variety of ways in that process (notably
through the sale of arms), whilst vigorously upholding the values in question
-- and claiming to be the prime defender of them.

Corruption as a classic lipoproblem

The phenomenon of corruption was for a long time avoided in conventional
public discussion of development, whether by theoreticians, practitioners
or administrators. It may well have been widely known to exist (by the experienced)
but it was not appropriate to consider it as a factor necessitating active
concern -- in some cases because of a context of secrecy, possibly reinforced
by a code of
meta.
With the obvious failure of many development programmes and other scandals,
it is now openly debated -- but more as an excuse after the fact than as
worthy of careful study in its own right. Transparency
International (founded in 1993) has provided valuable insight into
the phenomenon (Global
Corruption Report).

The assumption is still widely made that appropriately designed programmes
will not be undermined by isolated or systemic corruption.

Corruption therefore constitutes a classic example of a lipoproblem to which
no direct reference can be made, notably with respect to the processes and
envisaged programmes of intergovernmental institutions, or the activities
of commercial bodies "too large to fail".

Geo-engineering
is creeping onto the agenda because governments seem incapable of standing
up to the vested interests of the fossil fuel lobby, who will use the idea
to undermine the emissions reductions we can do safely....Intervening
in our planet's systems carries huge risks, with winners and losers, and
if we can't deliver political action on clean energy and efficiency then
consensus on geo-engineering is a fantasy.

An editorial in the Financial Times (Cool
engineering, 3 September 2009) points to the risk that too much momentum
will build up behind geo-engineering -- being dangerous for two reasons:

it would distract the world's attention and possibly draw resources
from the overwhelming priority: to cut emissions of greenhouse gases.

it could have disastrous side-effects. The danger is greatest
for technologies with the most potential for cooling the world quickly,
such as filling the upper atmosphere with microscopic particles in an 'aerosol' that
mimics the effect of a giant volcanic eruption.

As noted by Alok Jha, the Royal Society also pointed
out that technical and scientific issues may not be the dominant ones when
it came to the actual deployment of geo-engineering technology. Social, legal,
ethical and political issues would be of equal significance and implementing
global-scale projects would require a pre-existing international agreement.
As a member of the reporting group Catherine Redgwell remarked from an international
legal perspective:

When
it comes to techniques that need to be field-tested, and where that will
occur in places beyond national jurisdiction, such as sulphate aerosols,
then inevitably we're looking at some kind of international governance
framework.

From a lipostrategic perspective, the question is what dimensions were
carefully (or inadvertently) omitted from the "research" undertaken
by the Royal Society over a year -- notably in order to identify the focus
of further research of geoengineering? There is even a case for doing as
much research on the manner in which the research of the Royal Society was
framed as on the research that it recommends. As with criticism of the original
Limits to Growth methodology, where are the critical simulations
of geoengineering strategies and their blindspots?

Given the historical unprecedented
implications of implementation of technology that the report itself recognizes
to be largely unproven and with many risks, are there equally unproven strategies
which should also be on the table and subject to investigation? Is the emerging
focus on geoengineering to be seen as the collective product of what might
be compared with a committee of Dr Strangelove's -- as original caricatured
in the cult movie of Stanley Kubrick (Dr.
Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,
1964). Who is capable of proving otherwise?

How is it that the challenges of "climate change" have been so readily reduced
to:

Plan A: reduce carbon dioxide emissions

Plan B: geoengineering

What other options might there be arising from the insights of other disciplines
-- treated as irrelevant to the consideration of "Plan B"? Where are these
options considered? What research has been undertaken to determine their
viability? How dangerously narrow is the "technology-as-usual" focus of the
proponents of geoengineering, as previously discussed
(Geo-engineering
Oversight Agency for Thermal Stabilization (GOATS), 2008)?

The expectation of effective "international agreement" by the
Royal Society for the implementation of technologies they recommend can only
be described as naive in the extreme -- as it is proving in the case of the
UN Climate Change event. One factor undermining such agreement, as an example,
is the extent of influence of religion on governance -- inhibiting any reference
to the overpopulation factor. A number of major religions are committed to
an "end times"
scenario well-served by overheating of the planet and other disasters. Cognitive
closure to systemic consideration of such factors might be compared to the
use of the burka as a metaphor by Richard
Dawkins (The
God Delusion,
2006) to describe the role of religion -- in a final chapter
entitled The Mother of All Burkas. Dawkins is a Fellow of the Royal
Society. He is also a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature -- and,
as such, is presumably aware of the nature of lipograms.

Using his metaphor, as argued elsewhere (Burkha
as Metaphorical Mirror for Imperious Culture? 2009), if
the burka is indeed a mirror of cognitive imprisonment,
Dawkins helps to clarify the extent to which his understanding of the cognitive
role of science may indeed be just such a burka. The framing of geoengineering
might then indeed be described as the "mother of all burkas" --
especially if the planet is to be covered with a veil of dust (obscuring
the stars), as favoured by the Royal Society report (Jonathan Leake, Man-made
volcanoes may cool Earth, Times Online, 30 August 2009).

Will the future
recognize the lipostrategic characteristics of such limitations to understanding
-- as the "mother of all lipostrategies"?

Institutional engendering of lipostrategies

It might be asked whether there are characteristics of democratic institutions,
national or international, which currently predispose them to generate lipostrategies.
It remains completely unclear whether supposedly democratic institutions
can respond effectively to massive electorates with a huge range of concerns,
given the challenges of communication and information overload (Considering
All the Strategic Options: whilst ignoring alternatives and disclaiming cognitive
protectionism, 2009). Strategies must necessarily be crafted to
omit as much as to include -- if only to be viable?

The challenge of using any form of e-democracy to
enable such a process is illustrated by the Citizen's
Briefing Book (2009) -- a compilation of recommendations
for change in the USA, made electronically to Barack Obama in anticipation
of his inauguration. Estimates variously indicated that 400,000 suggestions
were proffered by over 100,000 respondents, with some 1.4 million votes on
various proposals. The most popular proposal, ending marijuana prohibition,
was dismissed out of hand by the recipient as not worthy of serious discussion
(despite its current active consideration in other countries of the region).
The contents of the exercise are no longer electronically accessible. This
gives a strong sense of how meaningful such consultation is considered to
be in practice. This is of a kind with rules for invited commentators on
the website of the New
Scientist,
whereby any comment that is not esteemed to be based on fact is deleted
(New
Scientist house rules on commenting, 2009).

However, as argued elsewhere, politics
in the eyes of many has become an exercise in breach of promise -- from
those made in electoral manifestos, through inappropriate legislation, to
failure of promised initiatives (Abuse
of Faith in Governance: mystery of the unasked question, 2009; G20
nations break 'no protectionism' vow, Financial
Times,
14 September 2009).
There has long been anecdotal suspicion regarding the behaviour of Members
of Parliament and the manner in which they (mis)represent the public. Most
recently this has been evident in a major scandal -- threatening the credibility
of the whole political process -- involving the systematic abuse of expenses
by parliamentarians in the so-called "Mother
of Parliaments" of the UK. This had been preceded by evidence regarding payments
made to peers in the House of Lords to influence legislation in support of
special interests. More generally criticisms had been made of the process
by which MPs received "cash
for questions" from interest groups.

At the European level, allegations have for example
been made that no major policy decision is taken by the EU that is not influenced
by appropriate "considerations" -- reflecting the culture of "commissions" that
has notably been highlighted and condemned by the OECD. It is noteworthy
that, following the scandal in the UK, there is little call for transparency
regarding the expenses and perks of Members of the European Parliament --
despite their criticism of the excessive remuneration of directors in the
corporate world. Is it to be expected that such institutions, upheld as
models, would be capable of articulating and implementing strategies that
were not flawed by significant omissions, namely lipostrategies?

Quite remarkable, at the European level, is the volume of revenue and expenditure
subject to audit by the European Court of Auditors, representing approximately
4-5% of the total budgets of all the Member States. About 5% of the entire
EU budget, five billion dollars, is lost to straightforward fraud, while
another 5% or so is misappropriated, and not spent on the programs for which
it was designated. One-tenth of the Union's budget, which the European Court
of Auditors accepts is misspent, amounts to almost 10 billion dollars a year.
The significance of such amounts is compounded by the fact that for 12 years
the European Union's auditors have refused to endorse the spending of large
parts of the EU budget -- funded by citizen taxpayers (Stephen Mulvey, Why
the EU's audit is bad news, BBC, 24 October 2006). The
European Commission, under Jacques
Santer, was forced to resign in 1999 following allegations of a pattern
of corruption.

Potential for omission of other systemic "vowels"

The challenge of lipograms is with respect to vowels (a, e, i, o, u)
as the most common feature of a language. It is then worth noting
the critical problems, including population, which were central to the World3 simulation
basic to the conclusions of The
Limits to Growth -- effectively treated as the "vowels" of
that systems language. They are:

the food system (dealing with agriculture and food production),

the industrial system,

the population system,

the non-renewable resources system,

the pollution system

There are of course examples of strategies -- lipostrategies -- which omit
consideration of systemic "vowels" other than population, with
the greatest art being to omit several in one strategy. A valuable insight
into the evaluation of the "5-vowel" World3 analysis is provided
by Graham Turner (A
Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality,
CSIRO 2007). He shows how the the original study provoked many criticisms
which falsely stated its conclusions in order to discredit it. Despite the
repeated substantiation of its conclusions, including warnings of overshoot and
collapse, recommendations of fundamental changes of policy and behaviour
for sustainability have not been taken up. As noted, one of its principal
areas of focus was population.

It may of course be argued that the set of "vowels" of World3
does not encompass the systemic challenge and that other systemic elements
(of the "alphabet")
should be seen in that light -- especially if their omission makes of The
Limits to Growth a lipoanalysis in its own right. One speculative
approach to this possibility used the World3 analysis as a metaphorical template
(World
Dynamics and Psychodynamics, 1971). An approach such as the latter
has the merit of pointing to the factors that affect direct consideration
of the burgeoning population -- scheduled to ensure that the ecological
footprint of humanity increases whatever the approach to "climate change".

One approach to determining opportunity for even more subtly constrained
strategies, as exemplars of the oulipian art form, is consideration of the
Viable System
Model (VSM). This is any system organized in
such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment,
notably the requirement of adaptability. From an oulipian perspective, the
challenge is to design a system that appears to fulfil such requirements
-- whilst building in an elegant flaw to engender speculation and drama about
how long it will last, despite enthusiastic investment in it. The scope for
designing such systems is discussed separately (Globallooning
-- Strategic Inflation of Expectations and Inconsequential Drift,
2009). An excellent example is provided through development of genetic
use restriction technology as a means of ensuring the sterility of second
generation crops, thereby creating worldwide dependence on suppliers of
patented seeds.

Another approach to understanding the challenge is by using as a metaphor
the set of vitamins critical to the viability of the human body. A range
of lipostrategies could be developed, each omitting one or more such "vitamins"
from the information processes in which the strategy is embedded (cf Memetic
and Information Diseases in a Knowledge Society, 2008). The
elegance of the outcome of such omission would only be evident in the longer-term
to connoisseurs of the art form -- perhaps even undetectable by most. Such
dietary experiments are typically conducted on laboratory animals for the
advancement of human knowledge.

It is possible that another fruitful approach is to understand the "lipo"
factor as a "missing link" vital to the viability and coherence
of the system in cybernetic terms -- a missing feedback loop. It then becomes
interesting as to whether the assertion to the United Nations of the existence
of "weapons
of mass destruction" in Iraq should in some way be understood as a lipostrategy
-- the high art of basing a strategy on the absence of proof. In this case
of course, "e" stands conveniently for evidence.

Such a mnemonic approach might be extended as in the following figure. The
question in each case is the nature of the strategy that might be designed
by failing to take into account one or more of such factors.

Array of potential
omissions in designof lipostrategies
Those on the right of the circle tend to be more explicit than those on
the left.
Those in the lower half tend to be less objective and tangible than those
above

Exclusion as
social exclusion (possibly resulting from encroachment)

Engagement in society

Evidence justifying initiatives

Evaluation of initiatives, risks and
liabilities

Endurance of suffering from exponential increase of population and degradation

Escapism as through narcotic compensation

Existential anxiety (self-esteem vs
depression)

Emptiness as in meaninglessness
or nihilism

Equity in
relationship to ownership and distribution of property and
assets

Efficiency of resource use (contrasted
with Efficacy as expected impact)

Excess whether as demand, consumption
or waste

Entertainment as recreational relief
(notably as offered by media)

Ethnicity as sense of special collective
identity

Of interest in such a diagram is the extent to which conventional strategies
normally associated with the upper right quadrant readily omit their exacerbation
of problems (ie. lipoproblems) in the lower left quadrant. A notable example
is the compensatory recourse to Escapism through narcotic drugs -- known
to be equivalent in economic terms to the oil and arms trades.

Relevance of other "lipo" associations

As noted above the lipogram focus of the Oulipo group
of writers and mathematicians is associated with several
others (see also Ou-X-Po)
having loosely related objectives with regard to the potential of other forms
of representation, notably Ou'info (information technology), Ouca(ta)po (catastrophe),
Oupolpot (politics), Oumathpo (mathematics).

It might be assumed that those who craft strategies on a resource constrained
planet could consider that they are effectively de facto members
of another such loose group -- perhaps "Oustrat". Given the focus
of these ouvroirs on
potential, the prefix "lipo" would appear to be mnemonically
helpful in the case of lipoproblematic strategies in that the two more widely recognized
uses of "lipo" are in

liposuction,
namely "suction-assisted fat removal" from the human body. Lipoproblematic
strategies at the global level are then implicitly indicative of the non-renewable
extraction of the "fat of the land" through population overshoot. They
may also be a reminder of the manner in which the productive capacity of
the future is effectively "drained" to pay for the ignorance of the present
-- echoing the popular association of excessive taxation with leeching.

The range of human sensitivities associated with fat and obesity, whether
with respect to their possible pathological nature or the discrimination
they may evoke, are also suggestive of the sensitivities associated with
population in excess of what a healthy planetary society might be able
to sustain. The manner and contexts in which "obesity" is treated
as unmentionable provide a link to the notion of "lipo" discussed
above. Its extensive use in cosmetic surgery is also a reminder of the
degree to which global strategies are themselves increasingly undertaken
for "cosmetic" purposes -- possibly even to be understood as
providing an institution with a public relations "face-lift" or to ensure
that they appear "less flabby".

lithium
polymer batteries of which one of the common abbreviations is indeed
lipo. These rechargeable
batteries have become increasingly important in consumer electronics
(PDAs, laptop computers and radio controlled devices) and are expected
to power the next generation of electric vehicles. The web has many references
to difficulties in charging them and the rate of loss of charge -- hence
"lipo problem". This battery technology however offers
an excellent metaphor with respect to any strategic concern given that
it reflects the latest innovative thinking on creatively handling polarization
-- valuable in addressing the primitive polarization which currently
undermines global strategies (Being
Positive Avoiding Negativity: management challenge of positive vs negative,
2005).

It might for example be fruitful to consider
that it is precisely through the manner of "ignoring" the pole
of overpopulation that global strategies are unable to build up and sustain
the charge necessary to their operation -- namely the challenge of sustaining
the so-called
"political will to change".

Li Po (or Li
Bai),
one of the most famous Chinese poets, part of the group
of scholars immortalized as the "Eight
Immortals of the Wine Cup", best known for his extravagant imagination
and striking Taoist imagery (Arthur Waley, The Poetry and Career of Li
Po, 1950). His 1,000 poems have significantly influenced
poetry in the West.

Taoist metaphors are well-recognized for their articulation
of the cognitive challenge of emptiness and absence, notably through
Chuang Tzu, recognized
as the prose-writing counterpart of Li Po. Of relevance to the challenge
of lipostrategies is Chuang Tzu's insights that:

Our life has a boundary
but there is no boundary to knowledge. To use what has a boundary to pursue
what is limitless is dangerous; with this knowledge, if we still go after
knowledge, we will run into trouble.

Tao is obscured when men understand only one of a pair of opposites,
or concentrate only on a partial aspect of being. Then clear expression
also becomes muddled by mere wordplay, affirming this one aspect and denying
the rest.... each denies
what the other affirms, and affirms what the other denies. What use is
this struggle to set up "No" against "Yes," and "Yes" against "No"? (The
Pivot)

Significant to the argument here is that a recent commentary on
Chinese literature offers the insight that: one
man's bete noire may very well be another's black swan.

Li Po is also the name of a people and
a language (Raymond G., Jr.
Lipo: a language of China, 2005). The Li
people (or Hlai) are
a minority Chinese ethnic group. For the mnemonic purpose here,
it is appropriate that the integrity of both the language and the people
are currently threatened. It may in fact be useful to think of both a lipoproblem
and a lipostrategy as having some of the characteristics of a "lost
language"
employed by a disappearing or forgotten people.

Lipovy has the meaning in Russian
of fake, artificial, counterfeit or forged, with related associations,
including fraudulent and deceptive, in Czech (lipovy), Polish
(lipa), Belarusian (lipavy) [indications
provided by Vladimir
Nickolayevich Tretyakov]. It is discussed by Constantine Muravnik
(Choosing
the Hero: Nabokov's Short Story 'Recruiting' as
an Introduction to His Aesthetics, 2008) with respect to Vladimir
Nabokov's understanding of the relationship of art to reality. This
association is a reminder of the role of artifice, pretence and bluff in
the presentation and implementation of a lipostrategy. It
also points to what is omitted that ensures the success of a confidence
trick which, at a strategic level, is often essential to the success
of military and business strategy (see Table
of Confidence Ploys, and Table
of Strategems, based on Gao Yuan, Lure
the Tiger Out
of the Mountains:
the thirty-six strategems of Ancient China, 1991). The Central Urals
in Russia are a source of the Lipovy Log rare metal pegmatite.
The African variety is notably a source of pyrite, known
there as "fool's
gold", because of its seeming resemblance to gold ("all
that glitters is not gold"). Pegmatites are a source of another
rare mineral -- appropriately called hiddenite.

These are reminders that the alluring golden sheen of some advocated strategies
may merit their recognition as "fool's gold" -- especially when their real
agendas are "hidden" by their assumed value. Which current global strategies
should be tested to determine whether or not they are "fool's
gold" -- the "glow" in "globallooning" (Globallooning
-- Strategic Inflation of Expectations and Inconsequential Drift, 2009)
-- if only from an African perspective?

Leap", as one pronunciation of "lip",
given the nature of the intercalary function of imaginative leaps (characteristic
of Li Po), as in a "leap
year", necessary to sustaining the impression of an orderly calendar,
despite arguments for calendar reform to correct hidden errors. This offers
a helpful reminder of the tendency to "leap over" any inconvenient
truth (An
Inconvenient Truth -- about any inconvenient truth, 2008). In
French the name Oulipo might then even be understood as "mind the
gap" -- a common message to passengers seeking to board a vehicle.
Such a warning is even more relevant in the case of the political section
of Oulipo -- which has the name OuPolPot.

The
associated global denial is perhaps neatly framed by the famous Shakespearean
quote: But
here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We'd jump the life to come. Or
perhaps John Dryden's: 'tis
worth the tempting, To o'erleap this gulph of fate, And leave our wandering
destinies behind (All
for Love; or the World Well Lost. A Tragedy, 1678).

This suggests
the possibility of identifying a person or a group engaging in such strategies
as a "leapo'er" or "lipoer". In this respect, there
is an irony to the fact that the financial bubble, prior to the crisis,
might be said to have been enabled by "Li power". It was David
Li who pioneered
the use of Gaussian
copula models for the pricing of collateralized
debt obligations fundamental to the
repackaging of derivatives central to the instability of the system (Felix
Salmon, Recipe
for Disaster The Formula That Killed Wall Street, Wired
Magazine, 17, March 2009). As Li had indicated in 2005 "Very
few people understand the essence of the model" (Mark Whitehouse, Slices
of Risk, The Wall Street Journal, 12 September 2005)
-- perhaps a primary characteristic of any lipostrategy.

"Lip", given the nature of the "lip-service" paid
to strategies and problems which are otherwise considered to be empty of
significance -- possible even to be recognized as "empty promises".
This might be seen in terms of the long tradition of deployment of "Potemkin
strategies" --
effectively shells decorated by values as a sham to camouflage other an
underlying strategic reality. This tendency has been helpfully highlighted
by the Bush regime whose worldview has been usefully articulated regarding
the distinction made by that regime between "faith-based" and "reality-based" decision-making
at the highest level, as noted in a much-cited article by Ron Suskind
(Without
a Doubt, The New York Times, In The Magazine, 17 October
2004):

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based
community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions
emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded
and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism.
He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works
anymore," he continued. "We're an empire
now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating
other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things
will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will
be left to just study what we do."

"Li po", as with the widespread use in French
academia of "sciences
po"
to refer to political science. Such an association might then be used to
encompass the current widespread concern with the level of lying in politics
and consequently in the strategies formulated by politicians. "Li
po"
then provides a hitherto missing acronym to refer to both lying politicians
and the lies of politicians.
This offers a powerful framing of what might be understood as underlying
a lipostrategy, namely some form of lie of omission (Dom Stasi, Lies
Of Omission;
William Bowles, Lies
by Omission). This is to remain silent and
thereby withhold vital information, simultaneously providing a false impression
to those so deprived.
This is a means of subverting the truth as a way of manipulating others
into altering their behaviour, thereby depriving them of their
right of self-determination.

Historically much analysis has focused on
the use by the Nazi regime of the "Big
Lie" as articulated by Hitler and
Goebbels, with the latter offering the insight: The
English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and
stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous
(1941). This suggests that any future global dictatorship would in all
probability make extensive use of a lipostrategy. Goebbels also offered:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,
people will eventually come to believe it. And Goering famously observed: The
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism
and exposing the country to danger. This might be appropriately named
as a "Big Lie Power".

It is of a kind with the "Li power" that sustained the financial
bubble (without being understood), although no effort appears to have
been made to benefit from its potential strategic relevance. Its potential
power is perhaps best indicated by the importance attached by mathematicians
to the recent "mapping of the genome" of the 248-dimensional E8
Lie group, as described
by Clifford Johnson (E8, Asymptotia,
March 2007). "Lie power" might then be said to be the capacity
to frame and relate complex structures with variously missing dimensions,
structures exemplifying the elegance for which global strategies and organization
now call (see illustration).

Li + Po: Separately these point to rich associations
that might well be fruitfully combined in relation to the argument here,
echoing some of the associations above:

Li: This is a classical Chinese word most extensively
use in Confucian and post-Confucian Chinese philosophy. Li encompasses
not a definitive object but rather a somewhat abstract idea. It is
often translated using some form of the word 'ritual',
but it has also been translated as 'customs', 'etiquette', 'morals',
and norms of proper social
behavior. It embodies
the entire spectrum of interaction with humans, nature, and even material
objects. The influence of li guided public expectations, such as the
loyalty to superiors and respect for elders in the community. In
Neo-Confucian
use of li refers to
the underlying intelligence and order of nature as reflected in its
organic forms, translated as rational principle or law.
As such it was central to the integration of Buddhism into Confucianism,
notably in the light of the Buddhist notion
of li, which also means principle.

Potentially there is then a further
fruitful association from the original relationship (together with
the other Oulipo initiatives) both with the Collège
de 'Pataphysique and with the insight driving the Ouvroir
de littérature potentielle. The
innovative mathematical preoccupations of the latter with regard to
constraints suggest their potential relevance to strategy development
under constraint. This is most notably the case with regard to insight
into the processing of "text" in its most generic (semiotic)
sense, presumably fundamental to the organization of a knowledge-based
society faced with memetic and mnemonic challenges (cf Union
of Imaginable Associations).

As an example, the group devises new techniques, often based on fundamental
mathematical problems such as the Knight's
Tour of the chess-board (as discussed in Navigating
the psychological forces of "communication space", 2003). The
latter's significance is recognized in its use in the USA as an official
symbol of psychological
operations (PsyOps), namely the ability to influence all types of
warfare. Such capacities are potentially relevant to the new understanding
of the nature of an appropriate global social project in an open society
as an "oeuvre" (in its more fundamental sense, as a magnum
opus implying henosis)
-- a further possible interpretation of "ouvroir".

Threadbare coherence: lipostrategies in caricature

The term "thread"
is applied to the manner in which messages succeed each other on a topic
in exchanges over the internet. There is however little emphasis on the manner
in which such threads may be woven together to constitute a knowledge analogue
to a piece of "cloth" or a "carpet" -- especially when the threads are very
short. Nor is there any reference to the design of such a carpet to which
significance is attached in distinguishing between different designs. There
is little sense of how to recognize emergent patterns of connectivity and
make them evident to enhance subsequent discussion.

In
knowledge terms, the coherence of a set of threads is therefore typically
absent and there is little attention to the software that might correct this
tendency -- one exception being the efforts of the Global
SenseMaking network in identifying "tools for dialogue and deliberation
on wicked problems". This suggests that such internet messages, perhaps exemplified
by "tweets", point to the "existence" of an underlying lipostrategy essentially
lacking in conventional forms of coherence -- and perhaps appropriate to
the preoccupation of John
Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization, 1995).

The metaphor is also useful in relation to the classic tale The
Emperor's New Clothes (1837) by Danish poet and author Hans
Christian Andersen. His gullible emperor unknowingly
hires two con artists to design a new suit of clothes for him, successfully
persuading him of the subtle elegance of the invisible cloth of which
it was purportedly made -- and in which he duly paraded to the appreciation
of all convinced by his authority of that elegance -- all except for
one little boy who loudly remarked on his nudity (cf Entangled
Tales of Memetic Disaster: mutual implication of the Emperor and the Little
Boy, 2009). This tale offers a caricature of a lipostrategy pointing
to the value of questioning the claims of current "emperors" in relation
to the appropriatenss of the strategies they claim to be pursuing -- elegantly
designed for them by an array of consultants.

Of particular interest to any such caricature is the "international
community"
which has no tangible or visible form. It does not "exist" -- allowing all
who might be considered to be associated with it to both accede to that perception
and to deny their involvement, according to circumstances. It might even
be described as a "lipocommunity".

However this example also raises the possibility that a lipostrategy may
not be defined and articulated conventionally and is rather an effect of
the dynamics between its identifiable elements -- as might be argued with
respect to the international community. The appropriate contrast is that
between static genetics (as assumptions regarding the determining role of
gene sequences) and the dynamics of epigenetics.

There is a further striking image of lipostrategies offered by the uncanny
functional resemblance between sacred message trees or rock cairns (of many
indigenous peoples) and the websites on which messages are now lodged in
cyberspace. Whether the messages are isolated or on threads, the visual impression
of such a message tree or cairn might be said (in many cases) to offer a
degree of coherence analogous to that of an institutional website. In both
cases the messages might be usefully seen as wishful thinking, resolutions,
pleas, etc. addressed to some invisible higher authority. "Travellers" add
to the collection on their pilgrimages or as they pass by. But, as with the
static/dynamic distinction, the coherence in the case of the message trees
and cairns derives in large part from the fact that they are blown by the
wind, carrying the significance "elsewhere". The static visible pattern is
not the key to the coherence which is essentially invisible. There is a degree
of similar dependence on the carrying capacity of the "winds of change" in
the case of institutional websites.

Such arrays of messages in the wind may also be associated with the invisible
problems they address -- perhaps appropriately to be understood as lipoproblems
in this context. In the case of sacred trees and cairns the messages may
be notably lodged there to ward off suspected evil in some form, but often
deliberately nameless. It is intriguing therefore the increasing tendency
for the "international community" to be preoccupied by problems that are
insubstantial as a whole, irrespective of specific evidence that is cited
for their existence and for the need for urgent action. Whether they are
indeed all lipoproblems, case studies might usefully include the threats
of Y2K, terrorism, climate change, epidemics, and the like (Review
of the Range of Virtual Wars: a strategic comparison with the global war
against terrorism, 2005). The threat of such invisible problems now offers a means
of providing a degree of coherence to global governance -- as with the evil
against which sacred sites offer protection (Promoting
a Singular Global Threat -- Terrorism: strategy of choice for world governance,
2002). They do however recall the danger highlighted by the tale of The
Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Conclusion

"Lipostrategic vowels": The notion of omitting "vowels" in
a systemic language to enable the design of dysfunctionally "constrained
strategies" might
encourage recognition of such lipostrategies as follows:

"a": actionability, naming strategies that
are inherently dissociated from action in practice or the possibility of
their activation

"e": excluding systemic consideration of a
problem essential to the viability of the strategy (a lipoproblematic
strategy)

"i": strategies agreed on paper without any
intention to implement them (however actionable they may be) or to integrate
them into other strategic initiatives, as with
the many resolutions and commitments of international meetings,

"o": strategies, although implemented with
optimism, lacking appropriate resources for operacy,
namely the organizational skills of action, of getting things done and
of making things happen (irrespective
of repeated cost overruns)

"u": strategies designed such as to be unprepared
for the unknown or unexpected ("Black
Swans"), or for unintended
consequences, or possibly with unstated
agendas to undermine other initiatives.

Potentially catastrophic "tipping points" in complex dynamical
systems, ranging from ecosystems to financial markets and the climate, are
typically recognized after the fact (cf Marten Scheffer, et al., Early-warning
signals for critical transitions, Nature, Vol 461, 3 September
2009). The question is whether the cognitive and institutional tendencies to
recognize them only after the fact could in some way be usefully clustered
as such distinct "lipostrategic vowels". In other words does the
manner in which a tipping point is unforeseen distinguish different styles
of lipostrategy? It is interesting that the Scheffer study makes no reference
to the cognitive implications of catastrophe
theory (now deprecated?), especially given the possibility that
the forms of catastrophe may be associated with the nature of the question
-- if asked -- through which they might be foreseen (cf Conformality
of 7 WH-questions to 7 Elementary Catastrophes: an exploration of potential
psychosocial implications, 2006).

The focus on the vowels of
European languages makes an important point regarding what is considered
essential in a multicultural global environment using other languages and
scripts. Clearly designed omissions of one set of languages are liable to
be of less significance for another. In this sense cultures compensate for
each others omissions and blindspots -- as do disciplines and other modes
of knowing.

It is very much worth reading, but with attention to the definite article.
For the West the phrase 'the crisis' has a clear enough meaning:
the financial crisis that hit the rich countries with great impact, and
is therefore of supreme importance. But even for the rich and privileged
that is by no means the only crisis, nor even the most severe. And others
see the world quite differently.

Vital role of omission? Given the Club of Rome's early association with
the systems analysis of
The Limits to Growth, its consideration of the population-resource
challenge, and its subsequent promotion of the terms problematique and resolutique,
perhaps there is now a case for promoting understanding of:

"lipoproblematique": as the study of a complex
of problems, with all the skills of systems analysis, such as to represent
a semblance of a coherent system whilst avoiding reference to a particular
central problem affecting that system. A common example is ignoring the
implication of corruption; systematic discounting of overpopulation is
another.

"liporesolutique": as a complex
of strategies centered on an unmentionable strategy -- designed such as
to appear coherent whilst ignoring a systemic consideration which might
otherwise be considered necessary to ensure its viability. The avoidance
might be that of a key feature of the problematique or of an effective
strategic resource (whether human, financial or infrastructure). The art
is then to design in failure (undetectably), as with the philosophy and
skills required for planned
obsolescence.

If the global resolutique is currently to be understood as characterized
by a number of competing lipostrategies, each might be fruitfully understood
in Richard Dawkins' terms as the "Mother of All Burkhas". This
implies an archetypal global competition "between the Mothers" and
their
"motherings":
that of religion (as claimed by Dawkins), that of science (as exemplified
by geoengineering), that of economics (as evident in the financial bubble),
that of global security systems (as exemplified by the arrogant assumptions
of military strategy in Afghanistan), that of overpopulation, and that of
the environment (vaguely evident as the stresses of Gaia). Each operates
beneath the cognitive radar and is readily denied. Together they provide
a context for the global misleadership that is increasingly evident (Emergence
of a Global Misleadership Council: misleading as vital to governance of the
future? 2007).

Of particular interest is the intense global focus
on the potential threat of development
of nuclear weapons by Iran (notably at the G20
Summit, Pittsburgh, 2009) compared to the total silence in such debates
regarding the undeclared threat
of the existing nuclear weapons of Israel. Such silence may be appropriately
understood as indicative of a lipostrategy. There would appear to be a complicity
of silence -- characteristic of a lipostrategy -- with respect to both
the concealment of Israeli nuclear weapons development over decades and
to the refusal to allow the IAEA to inspect its nuclear plants (George
Jahn, Nuclear
conference criticizes Israeli nukes, Associated Press, 18
September 2009; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Don't Israel's nuclear weapons
count?The Independent, 28 September 2009). This
is accompanied by vociferous rhetoric regarding the dangers to global security
of nuclear proliferation in other named countries, notably in resolutions
of the UN Security Council.

We live in a culture wide, all embracing fantasy world. It has become
our total 'reality.' It is our Conventional Wisdom. Paul
Ehrlich called this intellectual fog 'wonderland.' In
1973 Jonah
Raskin called it 'mythology.' .... [With others] John
Bellamy Foster (Capitalism
in Wonderland, Monthly Review, May 2009) ... shows
that all of our mainstream economists, policy makers, media owners, editors,
journalists, and politicians conform to the dictates of this falsified
view of reality..... Even when presented with facts that challenge this
gigantic delusion, being frightened, hypnotized, addicted, and brainwashed,
we reject them.... Our reigning economic falsehood is that our market economy
whose principal goal is short term private profit, is the best that humans
can create, is the best for everybody, and is in every respect unchallengeable.
Moreover, THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE.... Then there is the deepest secret
of all, so well hidden in our gigantic delusion, that almost nobody is
aware of it. It is the secret Ponzi-like scheme of our private bankers
that produces an almost unimaginable annual private profit for them at
our expense.

Global inaction: Curiously the ultimate lipostrategy --
the ultimate strategy of omission -- would logically be that of doing nothing,
or of ensuring that nothing is effectively done (beyond tokenism). Such an
act of supreme mastery would be in accordance with the highest philosophies
of the martial arts (Doing
by Not-doing). More curiously that might be said
to be the primary strategy of the "international community" in
play at this time. For example, for the first time in history, more than
one billion people, or nearly one in every 6 inhabitants of the planet, are
going hungry this year (World Food Programme, Number
Of World's Hungry Tops A Billion, 19 June 2009).

The art of governance might then be understood
as disguising the fact that nothing effective is being done -- as might otherwise
be claimed and assumed (The
Art of Non-Decision-Making -- and the manipulation of categories,
1997). The challenge is then to distinguish between that art and the "art
of not-doing". Both may be understood as lipostrategies appropriate
to extreme forms of lipogovernance. The cognitive challenge for governance
of such "emptiness" might be understood to be symbolized by the flat jade
disk with a circular hole -- the bi --
dating from ancient China and still held in the highest esteem, to the point
of figuring on the Olympic awards of 2008. The central hole might also be
fruitfully understood as a reminder of the many empty stomachs in global
society.

Learning from failure: If priority is to be given to collective learning,
it is not clear whether to deplore or celebrate lipostrategies -- as a primary
source of such learning through the disasters they engender. As noted by
Donald N. Michael (Learning
to Plan - And Planning to Learn, 1973) there is a "requirement
to embrace error":

More bluntly, future-responsive societal learning makes it necessary for
individuals and organizations to embrace error. It is the only way to ensure
a shared self-consciousness about limited theory to the nature of social
dynamics, about limited data for testing theory, and hence about our limited
ability to control our situation well enough to be successful more often
than not

An oulipian constraint is a constraint that must have a clinamen, a constraint
that must be fallible, a constraint that guarantees an enormous flexibility
of meaning, and finally it is a constraint that, if well construed, will
always "disappear." The foundation of the constraint is that
it is an act of memory.

Best man Ryuichi Ichinokawa took his place before the assembled wedding
guests, cleared his throat and for the next few minutes spoke movingly
about the bride and groom. But his speech omitted one crucial fact: that
he knew the beaming couple only marginally better than the waiters and
waitresses serving their wedding breakfast. From the moment the guests
sat down until they belted out the final karaoke song of the evening,
Ichinokawa was part of a grand, though well-intentioned, deception. He
is a professional stand-in, part of a growing service sector that rents
out fake spouses, best men, relatives, friends, colleagues, boyfriends
and girlfriends to spare their clients' blushes at social functions such
as weddings and funerals. (Justin McCurry, Lonely
Japanese find solace in 'rent a friend' agencies, The Guardian, 20 September 2009)